Kira Mac (acoustic)
The ‘Chaos Is Calling’ tour
Kira Mac (aka Rhiannon Hill) (vocals) / Joe Worrall (guitar)
I had never heard of this act, so a visit to Professor Google was in order. At Artistes International I found the following information: “Kira Mac, from Stoke-On-Trent is a Southern rock singer-songwriter and has performed on stages such as the O2 in London as well as venues across the country. She is a former student of music at the British Institute of Modern Music in Manchester. Her EP of original songs, ‘Storm on the Horizon’ went to number three in the iTunes country charts. Kira has played at a number of festivals and has shared the stage with huge UK country music artists. She has also supported many American artists on the UK legs of their tours. Alongside singing and writing her own songs with the band, she plays guitar, opening up acoustic possibilities to do sets for quieter more intimate venues along with doing tracks and knockout hits from all genres across the decades. Chaka Khan to The Supremes, Amy Winehouse to Lionel Richie she can sing anything to fit any occasion and every venue. Kira Mac is a brilliant entertainer with a great personality and can be booked as an acoustic guitarist or as a vocal entertainer with backing tracks.” That’s quite a range.
On this occasion she played a short acoustic, set in support of The Sweet and whilst I have labelled this the ‘Chaos Is Calling’ tour, it probably wasn’t because she didn’t appear with her band, just lone guitarist, Joe Worrall. That said, the first four songs of her setlist were from said album, whilst the remainder were songs that didn’t make the final cut, although they might make it onto a future recording.
Anyway, this lass can sing – seriously! Coming across as a Shania Twain–lite, complete with a gravelly American drawl and lots of reverb and echo, her songs were clearly well-rooted in country-rock. She explained the back-story about each one, how the band told her that certain of her songs were “sh*t”, hence they didn’t make the album, but that she has persevered with them. Apparently she has made a lot of wrong decisions in her life – hence the song, ‘Bad‘ – resulting in her having many tattoos of ex-boyfriends; we never got to see the evidence, though, as she remained covered-up in her long-sleeved shirt and leggings! ‘Hellfire & Holy Water’ was a good song about her father, whom she blames for her having turned out the way that she has – in a good way though! 🙂
After half an hour the pair left the stage to warm applause and I suspect that I might just hunt down the album on Spotify. Oh, and I’ll also keep an eye open for any dates when the she tours with her band. I was very entertained.
Unfortunately my phone camera is not especially good – and it doesn’t help when you are stood behind a few of the tallest blokes in attendance – but these photos will have to do.
Setlist: Chaos Is Calling; Imagine What We Could’ve Been; Back For More; Hellfire & Holy Water; Bad; Robyn’s Song; Say Something
Sweet
The ‘Unlock The Rock 2022 – Blitz of Hitz’ tour
Paul Manzi (lead vocals) / Andy Scott (guitars, vocals) / Tom Cory (guitars, keyboards, vocals) / Lee Small (bass, backing vocals) / Bruce Bisland (drums, percussion, backing vocals)
Yes, I know that I had already declared back in November that my gig schedule for this year had come to a closer, but this one came up and I couldn’t resist. The band received such a great review on Peter Walker’s VintageRocks Weblog that I decided I really must see them, especially as they were playing as close to me as Nottingham.
Back in the 70s when I started out on my journey of rock music appreciation, The Sweet (or just Sweet) were a much-maligned band, wrongly tarred and feathered as a teenybopper band churning out ChinniChap hits (writers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman wrote their major single successes at that point) with great hooks, riffs and melodies. But the band were becoming increasingly frustrated by this image because, deep down, they wanted to be a rock band; you only have to listen to their early albums and their own self-penned stuff to hear the evidence. They branched out, becoming more independent but, by the mid-70s, the band’s popularity was on the wane. Several splits later and there was more than one version of the band on the go too, with each of the four original band members eventually fronting his own version. After brief reconciliations and attempted reformations in 1988 and 1990, singer Brian Connolly died at the age of 51 on 9th February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks; drummer Mick Tucker died on 14th February 2002 from leukaemia, at the age of 54; and on 4th June 2020 it was announced that bassist Steve Priest had died.
Which brings me to this, the band’s final gig of the 2022 tour. And what a gig it was! They were absolutely brilliant, from the moment that the band took to the stage at 8:30pm and launched into ‘Action’ followed by the Russ Ballard classic, ‘New York Groove’. The set was a good balance between all of the classic hits and a few later/recent songs thrown in for good measure (although we did not get the new single, ‘Don’t Bring Me Water‘, due for release next year, I believe). Frontman Paul Manzi had the enthusiastic audience in the palm of his hand from minute one; in fact, all three at stage front were equally adept at getting the crowd clapping in time, chanting and singing. All of the big choruses and refrains were there: ”Wig-Wam Bam’, ‘Little Willy’, ‘Teenage Rampage’, ‘Fox on the Run’, ‘Blockbuster’, ‘Ballroom Blitz’, and we loved them all.
Although only Andy Scott remains from the original line-up, the four new musicians have really taken possession of the songs and have made them their own. They are definitely heavier than the originals, but something that I really did like was the fact that they stayed true to those originals – no egotistical, boring solos to pad them out, just faithful renditions of the classic songs that we know so well.
Hit after hit (with a little chat in between) made the evening fly by and then, after only a 90-minute set, the band were gone at 10pm, off home to rest and relax in readiness for Christmas having given me one of the best gigs that I have seen this year. I think that I spent the entire evening with a stupid grin right across my face – they really were that good. I’m so glad that I made the effort and I would have been recommending you to also go and catch them but you’re going to have wait now until the next tour, probably next year. Great entertainment. 🤘👍
For balance, here’s an independent review of the gig.
All photos are © RockNews
Setlist: Action; New York Groove; Hell Raiser; Burn on the Flame; The Six Teens; Everything; Windy City; Set Me Free; Teenage Rampage; Wig-Wam Bam; Little Willy; Love Is Like Oxygen; Fox on the Run; Encore: Blockbuster; The Ballroom Blitz
Here’s the band performing ‘Back in the New York Groove’…
Gigs'n'Stuff 